Washington will play five of its final seven Pac-12 games at Alaska Airlines Arena, a good thing for a club that, after winning eight of nine games, has dropped six of seven to fall below .500 in conference play. A reversal of fortune against Oregon Wednesday and Oregon State Saturday won’t be easy, especially where the No. 23-ranked Ducks are concerned.

“We’ve lost six out of seven you would anticipate that it would be very difficult to even go .500 from here on out IF you’re an outsider,” Romar said this week. “But within our own camp, I still feel like we can finish out and finish strong. If we finish strong in conference, there’s enough teams that we’re playing against that would be considered quality wins. We already have a few quality wins. I still think we can be OK. But it starts against Oregon. We can’t fall on our face any more.

“But there is zero margin for error at this point. Zero.”

Oregon, in a tie with UCLA and Arizona for the top spot in the Pac-12, not only defeated Washington two weeks ago in Eugene, the Ducks are superb in road games. Oregon is just one of 33 NCAA Division I teams to defeat a ranked team on the road, and one of just three clubs to beat two ranked teams away from home (UNLV and UCLA).

While Washington is 10-1 at home against Oregon in the Romar era, the Huskies have been vulnerable at Alaska Airlines Arena this season with four losses, including a pair of embarrassing defeats to Nevada and Albany. Also, the Huskies are 0-3 against ranked teams and have dropped their past six to ranked opponents.

Oregon, which has not swept the season series from Washington since 1995, is led by E.J. Singler, Arsalan Kazemi and Carlos Emery. Singler had 18 points in Oregon’s 87-76 win over UW two weeks ago. Kazemi had 11 points and 11 rebounds and Emery 11 points. But point guard Dominic Artis, who missed the first game between the teams, remains doubtful with a foot injury.

Washington has a 5-6 record against the RPI Top 100, but a 1-6 mark against the RPI Top 50 (Oregon is ranked 42nd) and an 0-3 record against AP ranked teams (Oregon is 23rd). While the Huskies have a single quality win against RPI #25 Colorado, they also have four bad losses to RPI #166 Oregon State, RPI #161 Utah, RPI #125 Nevada, and RPI #178 Albany.

SERIES: Dates to Feb. 13, 1904, when the Huskies defeated Oregon 19-16 in Eugene. Washington has won five of the past eight, but Oregon won the last meeting 87-76 Jan. 26 in Eugene. Singler scored 18 points for the Ducks. C.J. Wilcox led Washington with 14 points while Abdul Gaddy and Scott Suggs added 13 each.

C.J. Wilcox (17.7) ranks 5th in Pac-12 scoring and Scott Suggs 23rd at 12.0. Wilcox is T1 with 2.4 3-pointers per game 9th in 3-point percentage at 38.8.

Wilcox is the 37th player in UW history to score 1,000 career points.

Wilcox was named Pac-12 Player of the Week Jan. 14 after scoring 19 and 27 points, respectively, in road wins over California and Stanford.

Senior Aziz N’Diaye, who had a career-high 16 points against Arizona State last week and a career-high 18 rebounds Thursday at UCLA, ranks 3rd in rebounding at 9.8 per game. N’Diaye, who has four consecutive double-doubles, also ranks 1st in offensive rebounds (3.7) and 1st (61.6) in field goal percentage. N’Diaye ranks third all-time in UW history with a 57.0 field goal percentage and has 14 career double-doubles.

Shawn Kemp Jr. is averaging 10.6 points per game over his last six contests after averaging 3.4 points in his first 12.

Washington’s 14-point halftime rally vs. Cal-State Fullerton was the team’s largest comeback at the half since Dec. 29, 2007 at LSU. The Huskies trailed 41-27 and won 74-66.

UW HEAD COACH:Lorenzo Romar (324-212 overall, 231-122 UW) is coming off a year in which the Huskies won the Pac-12 regular-season title. Romar has taken the Huskies to the NCAA Tournament six times and won three Pac-10 Tournament titles (2005, 2010, 2011). Romar, who signed a 10-year contract extension in April 2011, won his his 200th game at Washington Dec. 16, 2011. He had his 300th career victory and his 100th as a conference coach on Jan. 21, 2012. Romar was selected the Pac-12 Coach of the Year for the third time in his career.

Romar played for the Huskies under head coach Marv Harshman during the 1979-80 seasons (served as team captain his senior year), and had a five-year NBA career with Golden State (1981-84), Milwaukee (1984) and Detroit (1984-85). He became a college head coach at Pepperdine in 1997, where he coached for three seasons, then spent three years (1999-02) at St. Louis University before taking the Washington job in 2002-03.

2012-13 Washington Statistics

Player

G

FG%

3FG%

FT%

RPG

APG

PPG

C.J. Wilcox

24

44.7

38.8

76.4

4.8

2.1

17.7

Scott Suggs

21

40.2

37.0

87.5

2.2

1.6

12.0

Abdul Gaddy

24

43.1

35.5

67.6

3.0

4.0

10.7

Aziz N’Diaye

24

61.6

0.00

43.7

9.8

0.3

10.7

Andrew Andrews

21

38.5

22.0

75.6

2.4

2.6

8.1

Shawn Kemp

17

48.1

0.00

62.5

2.5

0.2

5.5

Desmond Simmons

24

34.7

35.7

75.4

7.2

1.0

4.9

Jenard Jarreau

22

36.8

0.00

80.0

2.5

0.3

2.6

D. Overstreet

3

0.00

0.00

1.000

0.0

0.0

0.7

Hikeem Stewart

14

2.50

0.00

66.7

0.4

0.6

0.6

Martin Breunig

8

2.50

0.00

50.0

0.8

0.1

0.1

Q. Sterling

3

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.0

0.0

0.0

Total

24

44.1

34.6

68.2

36.4

11.9

68.9

Opponents

24

43.1

33.7

66.4

32.8

12.4

67.1

OREGON NOTES: Oregon is 3-1 against teams ranked by The Associated Press, with victories over No. 18 UNLV (83-79), No. 4 Arizona (70-66), No. 24 UCLA (76-67) and a loss to No. 22 Cincinnati (77-66) . . . Oregon ranks 4th in the conference in scoring offense (72.9), 4th in scoring defense (62.8), 2nd in scoring margin (+10.2), 5th in field goal percentage (45.3), 4th in free throw percentage (73.1) and 11th in 3-point percentage (32.2). Oregon also leads the Pac-12 in rebounding margin at +8.3 . . . Oregon does not have a single player leading the conference in an offensive or defensive statistic.

OREGON HEAD COACH:Dana Altman is in his third year as head coach of the Ducks and looking to secure his third consecutive 20-win season. The Ducks went 21-18 in his first season (2010-11) and played in the CBI tournament, and followed with a 24-10 mark last year and an appearance in the NIT (lost to Washington). Altman served as head coach at Creighton from 1994 through 2010. He was a Naismith National Coach of the Year finalist in 2003. He is a graduate of Eastern New Mexico.

COMING UP: The Huskies host Oregon State at 8 p.m. Saturday and then will head to Arizona and Arizona State next week.

YourThoughts

jafabian

If they want any sort of post season they have to finish strong but I’m not sure they can. Last game they seemed to be going thru the motions. Romar was urging them on but there just wasn’t a sense of urgency among the players. And if CJ Wilcox really is hurt he needs to sit.

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